


The Spaniard's Get

by Liv Campbell (perdikitti), William Alexander (zannyvix)



Series: Bad Blood [1]
Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Backstory, Civil War, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Magic, Original Character Death(s), Pre-Canon, Shapeshifting, Skinwalker, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdikitti/pseuds/Liv%20Campbell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zannyvix/pseuds/William%20Alexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Marrok and his sons deal with the fallout left by a nasty old wolf bent on breeding and Changing himself a pack of his own. What should have been a simple execution leaves them with a bloodbath, and a single, puzzling survivor. Set in the early to mid 1860s, during the Civil War, and written from Samuel's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spaniard's Get

**Author's Note:**

> Samuel, Bran, and Charles, along with the Mercyverse concepts and mythos, are not mine. They belong to Patricia Briggs, and all I'm doing is dabbling in her universe. Original characters mentioned within are my creations, or are (with permission) based on concepts put forth by a friend. If there are mistakes with the Spanish used here, it is because I don't speak the language and had to rely on Google translate. (Thank you, Leni, for helping me fix things!!!) This is my first piece of fanfic set in the Mercyverse, written because Bilagaana decided he needed backstory and demanded I write it for him. Perdikitti helped immensely with the plotting, pacing, and editing on this.

The Spaniard fell dead at last, his final breath gurgling through the torn ruin of his throat. Surprise made a mask of the man’s aristocratic features, his green eyes already glassy and fogged with death. Blood pooled on the elegant white marble floor beneath him, and a wolf’s guttural snarl filled the manor’s cavernous ballroom.

“Da.”

The growl rose a notch, and fresh blood spattered the floor, dripping from the wolf’s muzzle.

“He’s dead, Da. He can do no one harm any longer.”

Samuel spoke softly, keeping his eyes down. He had gone to his knees to keep his head lower than his father’s. Bran was touchy after a kill, and it was always best to make sure he was in control before making any quick movements. More and more often he had been leaving the killing to Samuel’s brother Charles, but skilled as he was, Charles was still young. He had not been pleased at being left behind today, but Bran had convinced him of the necessity. _Don_ Alejandro had been an old and powerful wolf, vicious and ruthless. He had escaped Bran’s notice and justice for a long time, a time he had spent at the business of fathering children. Children he later savaged, apparently in the hopes of building a pack tied to him by both blood and power. He had not been successful.

Most of those children lay dead now, their ripped and torn bodies scattered across the ballroom. There had been a dozen at least, their ages ranging from a lad still in his teens to men and women just into their third decade. _Don_ Alejandro had slaughtered them here in the heart of his lovely manor, trying to make wolves of his own offspring.

With the single exception of Samuel's brother, werewolves were made, not born. All of _Don_ Alejandro’s surviving children had been born fully human, from a number of different mothers if Samuel was any judge. The last surviving of them, a young man with bronzed skin a few shades lighter than Charles’, lay gasping out his final breaths against the far wall. Terrible raking wounds from the wolf’s claws and teeth had torn open his chest and belly, leaving him laying in a spreading pool of blood that mingled with the remains of his siblings. Few people survived to make it through the Change. Even having a werewolf for a father was no guarantee. Samuel knew that pain all too well. _Don_ Alejandro’s bloodbath was all for nothing.

A noise made him glance sharply at his father, but Samuel relaxed after a moment. Bran was shifting back, not eating the dead wolf or the pitiful mauled bodies scattered around them. If his Da was resuming his human form, the man was back in control. The lapse had not been much, but Samuel worried. He recalled the long years spent trying to gentle the berserker who lurked at the core of his father’s being. He had nearly lost his Da again when Charles' mother died, and killing brought the beast closer to the surface. The shift finished after a few minutes, leaving a slender, sandy-haired man who appeared even younger than Samuel crouching over _Don_ Alejandro’s cooling corpse. Bran did not turn to look at him.

“Da?”

“A moment,” his father murmured.

Samuel stayed quiet, giving Bran time to collect himself. He listened to the ragged gasping from the injured boy, who seemed to be taking an awfully long time to die.

“Samuel, the boy.”

Freed to move by his father’s command, Samuel rose cautiously, picking his way through the dead and hurrying to the injured young man’s side. The superficial resemblance that he had glimpsed to his own half-brother struck him anew as he knelt on the marble, but it went no farther than skin deep. Charles’ mother, Blue Jay Woman, had been Salish, of the Flathead tribe. Whoever this boy’s mother had been, she had not come from the same tribe. The coloration and bone structure were similar, but different enough to be distinct. Charles looked like his mother, with only a few touches around the chin and mouth that resembled Bran. This boy looked like a younger, more slender, bronzed version of _Don_ Alejandro, though the planes of his face bore other evidence of his mother’s native blood. He opened pain-glazed green eyes and stared at Samuel without really seeing him.

“ _Ayúdeme_ ,” boy rasped in Spanish. “Help me…”

“Easy,” Samuel murmured, gently checking the damage the boy’s own father had done to him. The wounds were not healing, a clear sign the Change had not taken, and the young man was dying as his siblings had. It wouldn’t be long now. “Do you have a name?”

The boy closed his eyes. “ _Si_ , Bila- Bilagaana. _Por favor_ … Please…” he said something more in garbled Spanish that Samuel did not catch.

Samuel glanced at his father and gave a faint shake of his head. “Rest easy,” he repeated, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. If they had just been a little sooner, they might have saved this one. A handful of minutes earlier, and they might have saved them all.

“Please! Ah… _Madre de Dios_ …” The young man gasped, and his back arched while his mouth opened on a soundless scream. Samuel jerked his hand back when the dreadful wounds healed in a sudden rush, and just as quickly the torn remnants of his clothing shredded and fell away, and fur rolled over the boy’s prone form. He watched, dumbfounded, as the young man made the transition from human to wolf almost as swiftly as his father Changed. Only very old and very dominant wolves shifted so fast. He was positive the boy had been human bare minutes before.

He backed off a few steps to give the young man some room, only glancing away when his father joined him. “Da? How is this possible?”

Bran cocked his head in a wolf-like movement, studying the brand new werewolf who lay panting on the floor. He was big, larger than his slender human frame suggested. His markings were black over a deep tawny gold, his eyes pale emerald in a black mask. Two minutes before, Samuel would have sworn he lay at death’s door, but the Change had reversed all the damage _Don_ Alejandro had done. It was possible the wolf's thick fur hid some of it, but Samuel had seen the wounds pulling closed by themselves, faster even than most Alphas healed.

“Is he like Charles?” Samuel prompted when his father didn’t reply.

“No,” Bran mused. “Not… Quite. Your brother was born what he is. This one was human.”

"New wolves don't change that fast," Samuel said dubiously. “ _Old_ wolves don’t change that fast.”

"Apparently no one mentioned that to this one."

While they watched, the young wolf slunk into the nearest corner on his belly. His tail was tucked and his ears pinned back, but he raised a lip to show long white canines, and a growl rumbled weakly in his chest.

"Enough," Bran said, frowning, and the wolf collapsed fully to the floor and quieted. He was dominant, then, but smart enough to recognize when he was outmatched. Samuel let the unconscious tension that had gathered drain out of his shoulders. If the young wolf submitted, he did not need to be killed.

"He's the last of the Spaniard's get, Da. His name is Bilagaana. Do we take him with us when we're through here?" He knew his father would have heard when the boy spoke, but Samuel repeated the name anyway. If they had to kill him after all, at least he would remember the lad’s name.

His father's gaze flicked over the room full of bodies with its pungent stench of old fear, blood, and perforated bowel. It smelled like death, and like food. It would take a powerful lot of fire to destroy the evidence of what _Don_ Alejandro had done. Witch fire would be best, if they could find another witch. _Don_ Alejandro’s had been their first casualty, along with the handful of men and two wolves who had fought to the death to try and protect their master while he finished his grisly work. To their benefit, the War Between the States raged on, and there was fighting not far from here. Once they fired it, the manor would be written off as just one more casualty of wartime looting, another atrocity among many.

"Bilagaana," Bran's lips shaped the unfamiliar syllables, and the wolf whined softly. Samuel did not know what sort of a father _Don_ Alejandro has been, but he understood the pain and confusion of having the only life one had ever known destroyed and ripped away in an instant.

"Yes," his father decided. " We'll bring him with us when we rejoin Charles. Samuel, see to him while I tend to this."

"Yes, Da."  

Bran turned back to the ballroom's carnage, leaving Samuel to deal with the new wolf. Fear or stubborn defiance had frozen Bilagaana's muscles so that he had to sink a hand into the wolf's thick black ruff and physically haul him out of the room. His nails skittered on the blood slick marble, but it afforded him no purchase. Other than the stiff legged resistance, the wolf did not fight him.

Samuel carried the trembling wolf down a long hall toward the manor's main entrance. The servants had fled, those they had not had to kill, and several formerly locked doors hung in broken ruin along the path he and his father had followed to get inside. The Spaniard had not intended that any of his offspring escape him. The doors had been locked to keep people in, not to keep other wolves out. He headed for the main entrance where they had left the horses, only to stop when the wolf in his arms made a pained noise. He let out an oath when he smelled mint and musk, and realized the boy was shifting back.

Carefully he set the wolf down. It was agony to be touched in the middle of a Change. It was not quite as swift and dramatic as his first shift, but the boy was human again in a handful of minutes. He knelt at Samuel's feet, panting raggedly.

"Please," he rasped between breaths. His chest and belly were whole again, healed by the magic of the Change working quicker than anything Samuel could recall observing. "Please, don't..." Unlike Charles, he did not seem able to clothe himself with magic, but there was still no explanation for the speed of his wounds healing, or his Change. He was a mystery, then, something to confound Samuel’s Da through another long winter.

Samuel went to a crouch on his haunches. "It's all right," he soothed. "Da will fire the ballroom, and then we'll leave this cursed place. You're safe, we'll not harm you."

"No," the boy said, giving his head a shake. Black hair just long enough to touch his shoulders shielded his face from Samuel. "Please, his women... Second floor, locked away. Please don't let them burn."

His words sent a bolt of cold through Samuel's healer's soul. "The Spaniard kept women locked up here?"

" _Si_ ," Bilagaana mumbled. "To father children on. They do not know what he was. He was monster enough without that."

"Your mother?" Samuel asked. He judged the boy to be perhaps sixteen, seventeen at most.

"She is dead, _señor_. I was her only living child. It is hard on them, bearing his children. He told us when he gathered us in that he would simply start over if none of us made the Change. He was old and patient. He had the time." Bilagaana spat on the tiles. "And now his curse passes to me. Better I had died with the rest."

"Show me where the women are kept," Samuel ordered to distract him as much as to move things along. The boy bristled, but looked away after trying to meet Samuel's gaze.

"Up there," he said, pointing to a broad staircase. Samuel helped him up, ignoring the wince when he touched Bilagaana's too-sensitive skin, and the flush of color that rose beneath the tawny flesh. Were he anything like Samuel's brother, he would be bothered by a shapeshifter's casual nudity, but there was no time for niceties. He slid an arm beneath the boy's shoulders to steady him, and helped him up the stairs.

Bilagaana led him to a corridor containing half a dozen cells, each with a woman inside. He left the new werewolf on a carved bench along the wall, and went to break the locks one by one, freeing the prisoners. More than one fell weeping on his neck, and two showed signs of growing pregnancy, but they looked as though they had been well fed and gently handled otherwise. It took Samuel several minutes to sort them out and send them down to the carriage house to await rescue. It was not attached to the main house, and should escape any fire they set. It seemed that Don Alejandro had not been very confident in his chances of Changing his last crop of offspring, either. It made Samuel wonder how many times this cycle had repeated.

By the time he had succeeded in shuffling the female prisoners out of the house and hunted down his young charge again, Samuel could smell smoke from his father's fire. He found Bilagaana dressed in clothing looted from a nearby bedroom, trousers and a starched white shirt that hung loose on his slender frame. The new wolf looked a little steadier on his feet, though Samuel could see the dark smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, and thought the boy could do with some feeding.

"Come on," he said, breathing shallowly against the thickening smoke. Samuel led the way back down the stairs and outside to where the horses waited. The extra horse and his brother's tall, bronzed figure did not surprise him overmuch.

"Da told you to wait at the camp," Samuel said with mild reproof.

Charles had been eying Bilagaana with a faint flicker of interest. "He contacted me and said you would need an extra mount." He tapped his temple. Bran could put thoughts into other people's heads, but could not take them out, or so he said. Telepathy was uncommon, and Samuel had no way of knowing if what his father said was true or not. Bran never gave any indication that it was otherwise, and it was not a talent Samuel or his brother shared. "How is Da?"

"Fine, thank you, Charles,” came Bran's reply from behind Samuel. Their father emerged dressed and clean from the manor. Smoke had begun to pour from open doors and windows. "Time to go."

"The women..." Bilagaana began reluctantly.

Bran raised a brow at his elder son, and Samuel explained what he had found on the manor's second floor. A slight tightening of his father's mouth was the only thing that showed his emotional response to the knowledge that the Spaniard had been keeping human women captive to breed himself children.

"You are absolutely certain they don't know what we are?" Bran questioned the young man, and Samuel saw the boy pale.

" _Si, signore_ , they were never allowed to leave their rooms." Bilagaana spoke to the ground, not even trying to meet Bran's eyes.

"Someone will find then when they come to investigate the fire. It's time for us to leave." 

Samuel knew that would not be the end of it. His father was too canny to leave potential witnesses to  _Don_ Alejandro's monstrosity behind. Bran's words were mostly to keep the boy cooperating without protest. He did not think that his father would order the death of the pregnant women unless necessity demanded it, but whether or not Bilagaana was correct in that they were unaware of werewolf kind, there was no doubt they had known a monster held them. Bran would send someone, likely the nearest Alpha, to watch and make certain  _Don_ Alejandro's actions had not inadvertently exposed their kind. If killing the Spaniard's former prisoners was what it took to keep them safe, it would be done.

The muted roar of the flames that ate the Spaniard and his folly faded slowly into the distance as they rode away. Bilagaana hunched awkwardly in his saddle as if unaccustomed to riding. A nudge from Charles made Samuel glance his brother's way. He smiled faintly and took the pouch of pemmican Charles offered, handing it to the new wolf.

"Here, Bilagaana, eat," Samuel said. "It may not taste very good, but you need the energy." The boy took the packet from him, not looking up.

"Bilagaana?" A small frown tugged at Charles' smooth features. "That's a _Diné_ word. It means-"

"I know what it means," the boy snapped, earning a growl from Charles that made him flinch. He continued to speak, which raised Samuel’s estimation of his bravery, or at least his stubbornness. " _He_ didn't. It was my mother's last insult, naming me for the pale faced strangers who destroy our ranges. Her words, not mine."

"And how did one of the _Diné_ come to be so far east that a beast like _Don_ Alejandro managed to catch her?" Charles questioned.

"She was outcast," the boy answered. "Before she died, she told me he burned her skin. Without it, she couldn't escape him."

Charles hissed sharply between his teeth. "Burned... Her skin?" Samuel asked.

"Skinwalker," Charles clarified, black eyes narrowing at the boy. "Black witch. He's witchborn, Da. How much did she teach you?"

"-What? Nothing!" Bilagaana insisted. "I was barely six years old when she died. Until I saw _him_ , my _father_ , change his skin for a wolf's, I thought she was making up stories to entertain me." He scrubbed at his face with one hand, nearly dropping the pemmican. "Who _are_ you people? Are you more monsters like he was? Like... Like I am?"

"The wolf makes no man any more monstrous than he was to begin with," Bran said lightly, not turning in his saddle. Samuel smelled the lie in his words, but the new wolf would not. Nor did Bilagaana need to be worried by the rage and lack of control unleashing the wolf could cause in a human being. Da would have it set to rights before it ever had a chance to become a problem, or the boy would not live to see a third moonrise. "The Spaniard had a black heart long before he became one of us."

“I’m Samuel Cornick,” Samuel introduced himself after a moment. “This is my brother Charles, and our Da, Bran.”

“Da? He is your father?” Bilagaana shot him a veiled look beneath soot black lashes. “He looks younger than you do.”

“And _Don_ Alejandro looked little older than you,” Samuel pointed out. “It’s a side effect of being a werewolf. We don’t age, we heal quickly, and we are difficult to kill.” He smiled when he saw the boy’s glance shoot towards Bran’s back. “Difficult, not impossible.”

“And you just… You go around killing werewolves who need to be killed?”

“When we must,” Samuel said mildly. “It’s better when we don’t have to.”

“Oh.” The boy fidgeted in his saddle. “So I am stuck like this? Forever? _Dios_...”

“You won’t get much older, physically,” Samuel told him. “There’s no cure, but it doesn’t have to be a curse. The rest, we’ll teach you.”

Bilagaana frowned. “What if I do not wish to learn?” he asked, a rebellious note in his voice.

“Then you will die,” Charles rumbled softly, and the boy subsided immediately. Samuel could smell the fear that rolled off him. Charles had that effect on people.

“I will learn,” the boy said in a much subdued voice. Growing up with a wolf like _Don_ Alejandro for a father, Bilagaana had no doubt learned the price of defiance young. There was no way the Spaniard would have tolerated disobedience even from his own human children. He would not have wanted to make a wolf who might challenge him. It would make some things easier. The boy was not submissive, but he already understood the appropriate body language for dealing with aggressive wolves. Samuel had to give the Spaniard that much begrudged credit.

By the time they reached their camp, the boy was all but falling off his horse with exhaustion. Samuel, still following his father’s dictates, got him roused enough to eat a little more, and then left the young wolf wrapped in a blanket and passed out by the fire. He moved to help Charles finish tending the horses. Bran had settled himself across from the sleeping young werewolf, elbows resting on his knees, and a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Witchborn, eh?” Samuel murmured.

“It seems likely,” Charles returned. “He wasn’t lying, or at least, he does not believe he has any magic. I find it hard to believe a skinwalker wouldn’t at least have tried to teach her son some of her magic, though six is fairly young if she died as he claims.”

“He shifts like you do, minus the clothes,” he told his brother. "And his wounds were gone almost as soon as the Change finished, though that may have just been the magic of this first time."

One of Charles’ brows rose, making him look more like their father. “Does he? Interesting.” Charles, either as a function of his own witchblood, or as part of his status as a born werewolf rather than a Changed one, had always been able to conjure clothing onto himself when he shifted. It was a skill Samuel sometimes envied, especially at times when turning up buck naked was damned inconvenient.

“I’ll question him later,” Charles said, giving his horse’s muzzle one last fond stroke before going to join Bran at the fireside. “If there’s more to it than the shifting, we need to know.”

Samuel made a face. “Don’t be too hard on him. That boy just had to watch his father slaughter the only family he’s ever known before Da ripped the man’s throat out.”

“He’s _Don_ Alejandro’s son,” Bran said quietly. “We can’t afford to go easy on him. I don’t want to have to put down another Spaniard.”

“He’s a child,” Samuel said, taking his own seat at the fire.

“He’s a wolf, raised by a rabid dog.” Bran sighed. “We’ll keep him, teach him if he can be taught, see what his mettle is made of. Charles will determine, if he can, the extent of the boy’s ability. He’ll have his chance to prove himself, Samuel, no worries.”

Samuel’s gaze settled on the sleeping boy. His features slack with exhaustion, Bilagaana looked even younger in the firelight. “I hope you’re right, Da. I hope you’re right.”

 


End file.
